Man Convicted In Alleged Gang Beating

ROCKVILLE, Md. (WUSA)-- The man believed to have orchestrated a vicious gang style beating in Montgomery County earlier this year has been convicted of second degree assault and robbery.

Twenty-two-year-old Tayshon Powell of Silver Spring was found guilty on Tuesday afternoon in a Montgomery County courtroom.

Prosecutors say Powell is a leader of a local street gang known as the Rolling Twenties Crips. Throughout the trial they maintained he was acting in his role as a gang boss when he organized a beating of an area teenager.

The original dispute was over a girl, according to prosecutors. The people involved in the disagreement were the teen victim, and another teen who was known to him. Prosecutors say Powell then brought 6 other gang members to assist in the beating of the victim. That assault took place along the 18000 block of Cottage Garden Drive in Germantown.

Ramon Korionoff, the spokesman for the Montgomery County District Attorney's office say the trial which lasted two days was a successful prosecution of a violent person.

Korionoff said cell phone video taken at the scene of the crime and then uploaded to Facebook is what led to a fast conviction .

He said, "It shows clearly that this defendant, Mr. Powell was the assailant...the main actor in this case."

Powell's grandmother Vera Harris says her grandson did not get a fair shake in the judicial process.

Harris told reporters she believed the 22-year old is not a gang member despite the prosecutions claim.

She also said, the prosecution was a case of "racial profiling...and I don't have any problem calling it out."

Powell will be sentenced in December, and faces up to 25 years in prison.//